正宗花江狗肉

... authentic huajiang dog meat.

i don't have time for a long post about this, so i'll make it short and sweet.

disclaimer: dog meat is considered healthy by some people in china; it's said that dog meat will keep a person warm in the winter time.

it started with my students were telling me that they disagree with people eating dog hot-pot winter. i thought, 'oh, i must do that.' so, we did. our friend, angela, helped out and we found a good place to get famous guizhou dog meat.

that night, we sampled dog meat hot-pot, dog brain, and also medicine wine made from the dog's ... male parts.

圣诞节快乐 & 新年快乐!

shèngdàn jié kuàilè & xīnnián kuàilè! = merry christmas & happy new year!

i honestly cannot believe that christmas has come and gone. i cannot believe that we are now living in 2012, the year that has the majority of my chinese friends or students frazzled over the mayan calendar prediction. today was the first time that i had to write the date - that's when it hit me. 2012. 2012.

i was ready for christmas even before thanksgiving. (i couldn't hold back.) but, on christmas eve/day, i didn't do too much celebrate. christmas eve was a day of foc gift exchanging, feasting at a meat buffet for lunch, napping all afternoon, and ordering mcdonald's delivery for dinner. christmas day was also quite uneventful. the two greatest parts of the day were:
* a student of mine, inspired by my christmas lesson in class, begged me to take her to church. done.
* with not much to do in the evening, a small group of us felt ktv would be an appropriate way to celebrate.

new year's eve was another night of foc bonding. the 'lijibei lu' apartment held a gathering for us foc folk. there were snacks, games, etc. when the clock struck midnight, we shot confetti 'guns' off the balcony and toasted with cheap chinese champagne. a memorable way to ring in the new year.

i hope your holiday celebrations were also wonderful.

it seems that the only nap i took in all of the month of december is when wuhan had its first and only snow. therefore, i can provide no pictures of the short-lived snowfall of this winter. however, trips to the ice skating rink in the new international plaza have kept the spirit of winter alive in wuhan.